[clug] Firewall distros - recommendations

[Tony and Robyn Lewis]

Rob Bolin wrote:

>Not wanting to start a distro flamewar, I'm looking for recommendations based 
>on recent experiences - currently I'm running Smoothwall v1.0 on a 486 with 
>64mb of RAM (I must admit that I'm not even sure if they are supporting 1.0 
>anymore - I haven't received a fix in 10 months).
>  
>
IMO, if you want to keep the old hardware, then SW or IPCop are probably 
the way to go, or roll your own.  I've used SW a few times, always on 
old hardware, and always had the frustration that it wouldn't find the 
hard drive when booting from the install CD.  Had to put both CD and 
target hard drive into a newer machine, let it install, reinsert it into 
old one, refind NICs and away you go.  You'll want to make sure your 
ADSL modem is going to work with it.

If you want more functionality (and have a gruntier box to donate), I've 
used and seen used ClarkConnect (www.clarkconnect.org) - has print 
server, file server, web site, firewall, VPN, and seems in active 
development.  It's based (or was) on Red Hat.

If you're keen to try rolling your own, I recently switched to shorewall 
(shorewall.sf.net) from the point-and-click firestarter, as my iptables 
manager / generator, on a Debian testing box, and found it fit my niche 
of skill and time.

Tony